A number of individuals inside and outside the administration—among them Charles de Gaulle, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mike Mansfield, Walter Lippmann, George Ball, Chester Bowles, and John Kenneth Galbraith—had since 1961 warned Kennedy against deepening America’s involvement in Vietnam and had urged him to seek negotiated withdrawal. Instead, the president chose to steadily increase the U.S. commitment. By the time of his death, more than sixteen thousand American military advisers were in Vietnam.
